all the colors look like fireworks
by shiksa goddess
Summary: but the nights can't hide the days/or, Ally on the mend. Strong T for themes


_all the colors look like fireworks- _but the night can't hide the days/ or, Ally on the mend.

/

There is an air of silence in the Sonic Boom that he certainly does not like.

The lights are off, except for one seeping through the closed door of the practice room.

"Ally?" He questions. There is no response. He walks up the stairs, admittedly worried. Maybe she'd fallen asleep, or was listening to music and couldn't hear him, he thought.

He expects to see a quiet, thoughtful Ally. Not Ally, clearly bruised, bloodied, with tattered clothes. She is curled up in a corner, shivering, petrified.

"Ally. Ally. Oh my God, Ally!" He touches her leg, but she retracts it. He wraps his arm around her, though, and he can feel her tense up beneath his grip. Then she realizes it's just Austin and relaxes.

She sits in a petrified silence, but she finds herself crawling into Austin's lap, needing his embrace to make her feel secure.

Neither of them say anything.

She doesn't bother to talk, eat, and had it not been an involuntary activity, she probably would've forgotten to breathe.

Austin can't really wrap his mind around it, but the reality of what has happened lingers in the air, and if said aloud, it would probably scare the living shit out of both of them. But, they needed to face it.

Ally had been raped.

He feels the anger bubbling up inside of him. Whoever did this deserved worse than a heinous crime sentence in prison. They needed something worse than hell, for tainting such a precious thing as Ally.

Nine'o'clock quickly dissolves into midnight, so Austin calls his parents to tell them he's working on a song with Ally again. They don't care, after all. He hesitates to call 911 until Ally has told him the necessary details.

She breathes heavily, and he's sort of scared that she's gone mute. Suddenly, she releases herself from his vice grip and limps over to the light switch. In the fluorescent lighting, Austin could easily see the numerous bruises splotched on Ally's milky skin, and bloodied yet tiny cuts down her legs, as well as how her flowy yellow skirt was nearly torn down the middle, and her tearstained porcelain face.

She looked fragile and broken, as if she were about to shatter into a million tiny pieces, but she was still easily the most beautiful thing Austin had ever come across in his life.

Limping over to the closet where they kept spare clothes to pick out a significantly less damaged outfit, Ally looked over to where Austin was sitting.

"I realize I'm not the prettiest girl in the world right now." She smiled half-heartedly. His heart almost skipped a beat at the sound of her voice, as it was the first thing he'd heard her say in twenty four hours.

He swallowed hard. "You are the most beautiful thing I've ever seen." He whispered sincerely.

"I feel weak." She hobbled over to the couch, close to where Austin remained on the floor.

"Well, it's probably because you haven't eaten for a while. Would you like me to go get someth-" He started rising from his seat.

"Not that kind of weak, Austin. I mean, I feel like I wasn't strong enough. I should've been able to fight him off, but he got me. He _won._"

Austin was scared yet tempted to ask who "he" was, but instead he watched Ally glide about the room. It was almost as if she did everything in one graceful, fluid, movement. Besides dancing.

"Ally Dawson, you are the strongest person I have ever met."

Stripping off her shirt (she'd never really cared about changing in Austin's presence, he was her best friend and he'd seen her in a bathing suit, anyways.), Ally laughed darkly.

"Why do you say that?"

A quick glimpse at Ally's bare skin revealed blossoming bruises on her stomach and red scratches on her skin, another infuriating piece of evidence that someone had hurt Ally.

"Because it's true. You rarely cry, you basically run this shop yourself, you put up with me everyday- no easy feat, I know- and here you are, in a time where you could be miserable, pretending as if nothing had happened."

He danced delicately around actually verbalizing what had happened, but she smiled.

Now fully dressed, she sat back down next to him.

"Don't tell anyone yet, okay?"

"Why? Ally, you need to file something so that this person can get their justice!"

"I just don't want to deal with police right now. Besides, I know exactly where _he_ is."

"How? Who was it, Ally?"

Ally's eyes widened.

/

"_Dez fucking Spinner, you fucking open the door right now!" _Austin yelled. His "best friend" had been in an alchoholic rehab center the past six months, but had apparently been (mistakenly) released. Austin's theory was that he had broken out. He obviously wasn't mentally stable-nor sober- yet.

Dez opens the door, and he honestly _looks _like a criminal, with bloodshot eyes and gruff scrubble on his cheeks. He looks nothing like the goofy, clown-like director that had once been Austin's best friend. He can barely look _this _Dez in the eyes.

"So, Ally told you." Dez says, his voice with a gravelly tone.

"Yes, she told me." He says, with a false air of calmness around him. _And the police, _he thinks.

He's not sure how it happened, but suddenly his fist connects with Dez's face.

"_**You do not ever hurt a girl, and God damn it you certainly do not hurt **_**my **_**Ally Dawson."**_

Dez is sprawled on the floor, and Austin almost feels guilty. Then, remembering Dez's actions, he doesn't.

Before he lets an apology choke out, Austin coughs awkwardly and then runs to his car. He waits until the police arrive, and watch them drag Dez out, handcuffed.

He almost feels bad again, because he know this isn't really Dez, this is a messed-up form of Dez, influenced by alchhol. He knows Dez isn't protesting against any of this because he honestly gave up on himself.

(Or he just didn't care.)

But either way, he had hurt Ally, and that was inexcusable.

/

Over the next month, everyone was just a little more...sensitive around Ally. No one spoke to her about it- besides the police- nor did anyone mention that Team Austin used to have a fourth person.

She was different, too. Well, not different, but her insecurities had been increased immensely. She feared almost every noise she couldn't identify, and she was no longer friendly and open to the customers that came into the Sonic Boom.

They didn't tell her,but she wasn't allowed to work alone anymore. Her father, Trish, or Austin had to be there- not that they weren't there about 24/7 anyways.

One of the days that Austin was watching her, she takes his hand and silently leads him to the practice room.

She was nearly shaking by the time she was able to open her mouth.

"Austin, I think I'm pregnant." She choked.

Austin's mouth went slack. Just when they were trying to reestablish a sense of normalcy, something had to come and screw them all up again.

"A-are you sure?" He stuttered.

She sniffled. "Well, I mean, I haven't gone to a doctor or anything, but I missed my period and I've taken three pregnancy tests and they're all coming up positive."

He stiffened. Though he wouldn't tell Ally this, he'd basically been dreaming about having little brunette girls and blonde little boys with her since they were sixteen.

But here she was, pregnant with the enemy's child, at eighteen.

"What am I going to do, Austin? I'm not suited to be a mother right now!"

He walked over and wrapped his arms around her, and she leaned her head into the crevice between his shoulder and chin.

"It's your decision, Alls." He remarked."But I'll be there for you through anything."

She grinned warmly. "How did I get so lucky to have a friend like you?"

"I could be asking the same question."

They sat there a few more minutes, ignoring the truth that was going to face them in eight more months.

"You know someone's supposed to be watching the store." Ally reminded him softly.

"Oh, shit." He helped her up off the couch and they ran down the stairs, where an angry mob of customers was waiting at the cash register.

"Your turn." Ally smirked, pushing him into the mob.

/

"Hey, Ally, you know we need to work on that song for that concert?

She scoffed. "Very specific. You mean we need to work on _She is Love _for the Helen Show?"

"Yeah, that." He came over to the bench where she'd been working. At two months along, her stomach wasn't even protruding enough to where he could notice it, let alone any random passerby.

"'Kay, just let me write this down." She scribbled a "personal" lyric into her book,of which Austin wasn't sure how it still had blank pages.

"You're going places, Austin Moon." She whispered, and he figured he wasn't really supposed to hear, but he grabbed her hand off the piano anyways.

"Wherever I go, you're coming with me." He assured, looking deeply into her dark brown eyes.

She smiled, and blinked back a tear.

"_I've been beaten down, I've been kicked around, _

_she takes it all for me." _She sang, and he nodded in recognition.

"_And I lost my faith, in my darkest days._

_She makes me want to believe." _He crooned. He'd helped write this song, and they both (silently) knew it was about Ally. Sort of.

_"They call her love,love,love,love, love." _They sang in harmony.

"_They call her love, love,love,love,love, she is love, and she is all I need. She's all I need."_

"It's a really beautiful song, but we need another verse." He whispers.

"Way ahead of you. _Well, I had my ways, they were all in vain, _

_and she waited patiently, it was all the same, all my pride and shame, she put me on my feet."_

He smiled.

"I think it's ready for the Helen Show."

/

"I've made my decision." She said grimly, glancing over her father and her two best friends.

Placing a hand on her stomach, she said "I'm going to give him or her up for adoption."

Lester nodded. In truth, it's what he wanted of his daughter. Of course, he wanted grandchildren one day, but not now. And not from Ally's attacker.

"I'm sure it-"Austin began. Ally glared at him. She refused to let anyone call her unborn child _it._ Though she didn't know the gender, it was a human being and it deserved the respect of one, she determined.

"I'm sure _he or she_ will go to a very loving home." He said comfortingly. Ally nodded sadly. He knew she already loved the child growing inside of her, and would love _he or she _no matter what, even if _he or she_ came out identical to Dez. _He or she_ was still her child. He also knew it was going to be hard for her to give her baby up, though she was doing it for the sake of the child, as she felt she was in no way fit to be a mother.

"What are you going to name it- him or her?" Trish asked blatantly. They all laughed, though in retrospect it wasn't really was just something more lighthearted than what they'd been dealing with the past several months.

"I don't know. I suppose I'll let the adoptive parents name them."

They all nodded. "Good decision." Trish said. They knew Ally got attatched to things and loved things easily, and once something had a name, they became part of the family. Well, Austin had never really seen her go through a loss, but he imagined she'd taken it pretty hard when her mom had passed.

After all, even the bravest person in the world had a weak spot.

/

When it came time for Ally to go to her next sonogram- the one where the baby's gender could be determined- she said she was going to go alone. But in truth she'd let Austin come.

As they walked into the doctor's office, they were suddenly overwhlemed with the crisp scent of pine and a brisk blast of air from the air conditioner.

Ally shivered and rubbed her arms, unaware that almost all the adults in the waiting room were staring at her disapprovingly.

"Austin, I forgot my jacket in the car. Can I borrow the keys?"

Normally, he'd have offered to go get the jacket for her, but there was something he needed to clarify here. He handed her his keys and watched her head out.

'Now you all listen to me." Austin had a voice that could be loud and demanding and actually quite frightening if he chose to make it so.

"My best friend here was _raped._ She isn't the foolish, irresponsible girl who got knocked up as a teenager that you evidently assume she is. She is one of the most wonderful, intelligent girls you will ever meet, and she is trying to do the right thing by herself and her child. So don't you even dare _think_ about condescending Ally Dawson."

Ally stepped in, black cardigan in hand, wondering why the whole room was silent and still.

"Everything okay?"

Austin wrapped an arm around her, aware that people were staring at him. Maybe in anger. Maybe fear. Or maybe just utter disbelief. Either way, he knew they wouldn't give another negative thought towards Ally. Ever.

"Everything's fine."

/

The doctor- he thinks the proper term is OB/GYN. Or is it gynecologist? Pediatrician? He's not sure- squeezes a clear gel across Ally's round belly.

"What's the purpose of that?" Austin questions.

Dr Baade smiles. "I guess there really is no need for it. It just helps the wand glide easier."

She moves the wand around and a black picture comes up on the screen. The small room is completely silent until the fuzzy, x-ray like picture of Ally's baby pops up on the machine. It's (excuse him, _he's or she's_) about the size of a kidney bean, tiny, mittten-like hands floating around in Ally's womb, and if you listened very intensely, you could just barely hear the tiny_ ba-dum, ba-dum, _of the steady heartbeat.

Ally grips Austin's hand gently. Her eyes are shiny with tears, and he can tell that she's fallen in love with the thing already.

"Would you like to know the gender?" Dr Baade asks.

Ally nods.

Dr Baade moves the wand around a bit more. "It's a boy!" She smiles at the young mother, caring and unjudging. Maybe she'd heard Austin's spiel out there, he wonders. Or maybe she was just truly an open-hearted person.

Ally squealed. "Ohmygod! Austin, I have a son!"

The doctor shifts her eyes to Austin. "Are you the father?" She questions.

Austin and Ally both shake their heads. "But he may as well be." Ally says quietly.

/

She really can't believe it sometimes, that there is another _human being_ inside of her, this little boy.

She's actually so sublimely happy about it, she can ignore all the stares and wonders that come as a tribulation of being a teen mom.

Luckily, Austin was there to be aware of the stares, aware of the dangers that potentially faced her, and aware of her mood swings.

Her food cravings are getting _really _strange. He suppioses that, well, her favorite food was already pickles, she obviously didn't have a mainstream taste in food, so why shouldn't her cravings be extreme?

"Hey, Austin, can you go get me some mustard? No, wait, chocolate chip ice cream. No, you know what? Get 'em both."

Austin cringed. "Please tell me you're not gonna combine them."

Ally's eyes light up." Ooh, that's a good idea! I'll try that!"

Austing groans and grimaces, but, being the dutiful best friend, he sets off to go buy the ingredients.

He's not sure what hit him, but suddenly watching Ally wolf down that yellow-brown concoction thing was the most appealing sight he'd ever encountered. Though that ice cream looked truly disgusting.

His belief never faltered that she'd always be the most beautiful thing in his world. It just became apparent that his life really did revolve around Ally, and she just _illuminated _everything, made it better, made it gold.

And, when he let himself admit it, he'd realized that he'd fallen in love with the ravenous, pregnant Ally Dawson.

Not that he hadn't always been.

/

He goes with her to the first adoption prospect's house.

A young, brown-haired man answered.

"You're here about the adoption?" He questions, not bothering to hide his disbelief.

Ally and Austin nod.

"Well, if this child is a mix of you two, I'm sure he's going to be a looker." He jokes, ushering the pair into the grand foyer.

"Oh, well, he's not the father." Ally quickly explains. "He's here because..." She trails off, realizing she doesn't really have a reason for him to follow her everywhere.

"Moral support." Austin provides. "I'm Ally's best friend, Austin."

"Austin Moon!" The man laughs. "My wife-well, then girlfriend- loves you! I actually proposed to her at one of your concerts."

Austin smiled. "Small world."

/

Joeseph and Kara, as they learn the couple is named, are literally the perfect couple. Kara is a music producer, twenty-five and is unable to have children, something that she'd been dreaming about since she was a little girl.

But, really, she liked talking more about Austin and Ally. Or, more specifically, the potential of AustinandAlly.

"You know, I think you love him. I used to watch those videos y'all put up on that cute lil' website your director-" Ally flinches at the image of Dez flashing to her brain.

"Made, and I always would see you trying to get out of the camera but y'all were so cute together! I thought 'what a perfect and adorable couple they'd make'!" Kara babbled on and on.

Ally was shocked. Sure, maybe over the last five years she'd thought about what would happen if she and Austin dated, but decided against it, mostly because she was too scared of what would happen if things ended badly.

But, if she thought about it clearly, aside from the child that had been consuming most of her brain-and her midsection- for the past six months, she could sort of see herself in irrevocable love with the cocky Austin Moon.

/

"I can't be in love with you." She blurts. There's numerous papers scattered around the practice room floor, scratched up with rejected lyrics and broken melodies.

Her eyes immediately fall downwards, landing on the geometric pattern of the piano keys.

His eyes widen a bit in surprise, but, much to her surprise, does not freak out.

"Why?"

"Because I am a literal hamartia, I'd be way too complicated to hold onto, and I'm about to be a teenage mother."

"Ally, you just listed reasons why you think I-someone shouldn't be in love with _you_. You don't have any particular reasons to not be in love with me."

"That was a very poorly phrased sentence." Ally mumbled.

Austin chuckled. "You're avoiding the topic. It's 'cause you're in love with me."

Ally scoffed, wincing as she felt her little boy move. "Pshh. I'm not in love with you, you egotist. Besides, why do you care? It's not as if you're in love with m-"

"Ally, Ally, Ally. You think no one should be in love with you? Then I guess you don't know how much you mean to me."

He meets her eyes. "Or how much I _am_ in love with you."

Her breathing is abruptly cut off by the feeling of Austin's lips against hers.

/

She sort of stays in limbo with it all, sort of suspended in disbelief, merely because reality is just too complicated to dissect.

She makes a lot of lists these days. _Appointments to go to. Austin's concert dates. Unfinished songs. _

Ally fishes a notepad from her bag and titles a new list: _What I Know_

_What I Know_

-_Any possible day now, I will go into labor and have a son_

_-Dez is the father/biological other half of said son_

_-About nine months ago, I was raped in the practice room of the Sonic Boom by Dez Spinner_

_-My name is Allyson Leila Dawson, I'm 18, my birthday is March 19, I graduated from Miami Preparatory Academy about two years ago, I live in Miami, my dad's name is Lester, he owns the Sonic Boom_

_-About ten years worth of math,science, social studies, writing/reading, and about ten instruments_

_-I am Austin Moon(the celebrity)'s songwriter, and I am deeply in love with him._

_-Austin Moon is deeply in love with me_

_/_

Ally's son is born on March 1st, precisely eighteen days before her nineteenth birthday.

It is a bright and early morning and Ally is at work when her water breaks-though legally, she probably should've been on maternity leave- spilling over the rubber mats behind the Sonic Boom's counter. Her porcelain face scrunches into a lemon-sucking expression and she lays a hand over her round, protruding stomach.

She moans, and Austin, who'd been toying with a new model of harmonica, turns around.

"Austin, he's coming." She squeaks, the pain she withheld from her voice _very_ evident in her panicked brown eyes.

He lifts her bridal-style with ease, though she was about twenty pounds heavier then normal. Which, to be fair, brought her up to a grand total of 120, still far under Austin's 180 pound frame.

He carries her out to his white Jeep, managing to single-handedly lock up the Sonic Boom in the process, all while Ally is inhaling deeply to help alleviate the pain of the contractions. He calls her father, who, as always, is absent from the scene.

Tears are flooding down her face, so he grabs her hand and squeezes it at a steady pace, like the pulse of a heartbeat.

He kisses her temple at a red light. "You're going to be fine."

Fourteen hours later, a feverish, sweaty Ally cradles the mottled-skinned baby. He had milky-white skin, Ally's dark brown hair, and Dez's blue eyes and narrow nose. But he is still easily one of the most beautiful things Ally has ever seen.

She stares at the little creature, a part of her, and she is highly scared of falling in love with him. Because, while he is her son, he will never quite be Hers.

Nurses flood in with cards and candy for Ally to eat when she can down something besides ice chips. But they all feel the melancholic air that looms in the room. As all of the official paperwork and whatnot had been previously settled, Kara and Joeseph would be there bright and early in three days to collect their new son.

They wanted Ally to name him, though, and as she pondered this, glancing at the blank birth certificate, she turned to Austin, who, as always, had been holding her hand through everything.

"What do you think I should name him?"

Ally looks over at her boyfriend sweetly. Her hair is matted, her face is free of any makeup, and she dons an unflattering green hospital gown, but he thinks she is flawless.

"Name him Alexander. It means 'helper of mankind'."

She smiles, then glances towards the child in his bassinet."He seems like an Alexander."

She fills out the form.

Name: Alexander Jonas Dawson

DOB: 03/01/2016

Weight: 7.06 lbs

Height: 19 in

Mother: Allyson Leila Dawson

Father: Austin Monica Moon

"He needed a father." She says. "And that's you."

She's sort of right. He's been involved in the pregnancy as much as possible, and he was more of a fatherly figure than Dez is, certainly.

"But I'm not the birth parent."

Ally smiles. "You are now."

/

She's opted for a closed adoption, in fear that anything else would've made her regret giving him up.

She kisses his forehead, as does Austin, then hands the baby over to Kara.

"Thank you, for everything, both of you." The new mother (Kara, not Ally) smiles to Austin and Ally, whom she'd been happy to find were now, in fact, together.

"And you know, if you ever want to visit, we won't mind." Joeseph jumps in.

"I'll keep that in mind." Ally chokes, teary-eyed.

She watches the family walk out, walk away from Austin and Ally forever.

He pretends that he never saw the tears pooling in her eyes as they did.

/

There is no state of normalcy when Ally returns home from the hospital, though a random passerby that had known her from high school and had not seen her since graduation probably would not detect anything different about her, aesthetically and dispositionally speaking.

But even though the child in her womb was not in utero any longer, she's not the same, and she presumably never would be. She'd at once been Ally Dawson, singer,songwriter,musician, friend, student, daughter, wallflower, and now she was all of those with "mother,rape victim, girlfriend" tacked on the end.

She enrolls at Miami Community College, to obtain a degree in Criminal Justice, she says.

"I could never fight for myself, but I'm going to learn how to fight for others." She explains. Another reason is that she wants girls who'd gotten raped, much like her, to feel like they'd won, not the attacker. Wanted all of the criminals of the world to get their punishment.

They also get an apartment together, funded by Austin's concerts and other music revenue. It's sort of a quiet existence, at least for Ally. Austin got the occasional mob of photographers, but he kept to himself a lot as well.

They never really talk about Dez anymore. He was in prison now, for who knew how long, and they decided that he shouldn't matter to them anymore except in the distant memories of what he'd once been, back in high school.

Trish sort of fades into the woodwork herself. Turned out that while Ally'd been pregnant, she'd been taking pre-law courses. She'd gotten into Harvard Law, surprisingly, and she tries to keep in contact with the gang, but it was hard.

So, it finally came down to Austin and Ally alone, like it had almost always been,actually, just with Dez and Trish completely out of the picture.

Austin's own career was blossoming. He'd gotten an official record deal, finally, but it was based in Miami, so he still spends about the same amount of time with Ally as always.

She seems okay. Not happy exactly. But alive, which was at least something. She really was the strongest person he knew, she always seemed to be willing to take on the weight of the world. But she was still Ally Dawson, and she was still vulnerable.

He notices it especially when she sees women with newborn babies. He supposes it makes her a little nostalgic, and maybe a little wistful. He wants to tell her that it's fine, that one day they can get married and have little miniature versions of themselves, but he doesn't say a thing.

She's also very cautious now. Not that she wasn't before, but now she needed Austin beside her at all times to prevent her from jumping out of her skin whenever a stranger looked at her.

It's a very justified gesture though. He doesn't really want her alone,either.

Precisely one year after Alexander's birth, a photo shows up in her email. The email had a subject of "We just couldn't help it" and the photo shows a chubby little baby boy, toddling down a polished, wooden-floored hallway. He looks so very much like Ally, same wavy,dark hair and big smile, and the same wide eyes.

He comes up behind her just to see what is this thing that is absorbing her so much.

She whispers "Alex", then runs out the front door.

He chases after her, seeing that she's settled herself into the taupe plastic lawn chair sitting on the cement of their "balcony". Tears are streaming down her face and she's staring over the black wrought-iron guard railing, at the magnificent view of the Gulf. The sun, a yellow egg yolk spilling over the blue of the water, dragging the majestic pinks and oranges and reds of the evening sky down with it as the dark, starry blue invades, the moon casting a faint light and turning the ocean into a silvery-blue concoction of mystery.

"Have you wondered about what's deep in the ocean? Like, anyone can go fishing and snap up a trout or tilapia, and everyone's cautious of sharks, but what if there's something far worse, or far more wonderous below the human-invaded capacities? Something just waiting to be noticed, but it'll never be, because it's too far deep and shrouded in just too much mystery? Or what if, drifting somewhere in the unexplored but shallow areas, there's dead bodies? Like, maybe someone thew them in, hiding a heinous crime and attempting to make a clean getaway, or maybe they drowned, drifted away and sunk because no one could save them? What happens to their families? They just never get answers, because no one can dare to come to conclusions like _they're lost in the ocean._ They just keep hoping that someday they'll come back. But that doesn't happen. Things that get lost, or get given, they just don't come back very often, now do they, Austin?"

She ponders these things, and Austin finds himself extremely lost in her incredibly messy, entangled train(s) of thought. But he knows that it was all sort of a metaphor for

what she's been through, and this was just her very wordy, very pretentious way of verbalizing it.

"I don't know." He replies honestly, leaning up against their white doorframe. He's never smoked, but if he'd had a pack of cigarettes, he probably would've at least stuck one in his mouth, because this sort of just seemed like a perfect moment to do something of the sort.

"I know you don't know. I don't know, either. _No one_ knows." She giggles. "That was a lot of 'knows'." She adds foolishly, and he smiles just because she did.

She turns to look at him suddenly, her big brown eyes steady on his. "Austin, I did the right thing, didn't I?"

He's confused for a moment, then realizes she must be referring to Alex.

"Well, that depends. Does it _feel _right?"

The tears, which had been temporarily ceased for Ally's little analysis of the ocean, returned, rolling down her face, fast and hot.

"I don't know!" She sobs. "I mean, I feel like I did right by him, but I can't _not_ miss him."

He nods, because he sort of misses the little squirt himself.

"I think you'll be okay, Ally-cat." He says, crossing to sit in the chair identical to his girlfriend's, using a juvenile pet name that certainly didn't fit her anymore.

"It's just, I feel like, you know, that kid has someone who loves him, and who'll always love him, unconditionally, and he doesn't love me. He doesn't even know I exist, and he never will. And how are Kara and Joeseph gonna explain that to him? 'Hey, son, we adopted you from a neurotic teenage girl who was raped by an alcoholic bastard who at one point _wasn't _a bastard but actually really good guy, but the superstar Austin Moon is listed as your father on your birth certificate'? There is no _possible_ way to manipulate that to sound normal, in any circumstance."

"Hey, he is the offspring of Team Austin, minus Trish. He was destined to be abnormal from the start." He jokes half-heartedly, and Ally glares at him as if to say _not funny._

He holds his hands up in surrender.

"The main thing is, I just don't _have _him anymore. He is a piece of me, missing. I'm not whole with a piece missing."

He pulls her closer, and she fits her head into the crook of his neck.

"Allyson Dawson. You may not have him, but you will always, _always _have me."

He whispers, and she squeezes her eyes shut, crying into the denim sleeve of his jacket.

"I love you so much, Austin. I just- I love you."

And it's a very strange feeling, considering all that they've been through together, but he realizes that this is the very first time she's ever said those exact words. She'd said "I'm in love with you" or "I'll always love you", but she'd never just said simply "I love you."

So he tightens the embrace. "I love you,too."

They sit in silence, the various sounds of the ocean at night and Miami nightlife resonating in their ears, but their thoughts fly at about a thousand miles per second.

And it's not perfect, but it's certainly right.

/fin/

**A/N: I own nothing you recognize, including All That I Am and She is Love by Parachute. Or The Fault In Our Stars by John Green.**

**a) Read TFIOS. It's amazing. **

**bl This fic was born of the line of All That I Am "and all the colors look like fireworks in skies she knew before", which is the title, and it reminded me of nostalgia. Which somehow led to this. **

**The Guide by Borne is also good background music. **

**c) I have nothing against Dez. I think he's funny, and I don't think he'd ever commit a crime, and his& Ally's friendship is becoming adorable. I was just tired of seeing Dallas as the bad guy. **

**d)I'm 13, and highly unqualified to be writing about subjects like rape and pregnancy. Sorry for any logistic errors. **

**e) I have mixed feelings about this. I love to hate it.. **


End file.
